Appeals court hears arguments in Confederate monuments case
3rd October 2016 · 0 Comments
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Wednesday from both sides in the bitter fight over the fate of several Confederate-era monuments located on public spaces across the City of New Orleans.
Last week’s hearing came six months after the New Orleans City Council voted 6-1 in December 2015 to remove four monuments — statues honoring Confederate leaders P.G.T. Beauregard, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee and the Battle of Liberty place monument — from public spaces and relocating them to yet-to-be-determined sites.
Wednesday’s hearing focused on the three statues of the Confederate leaders, with both sides agreeing that Liberty Place monument should be dealt with in separate legal proceedings.
The court kept in place an earlier ruling that allows the Lee, Davis and Beauregard monuments to remain at their current sites until a three-judge panel reaches a decision in the case. Those seeking to remove the monuments from public spaces argued Wednesday that the City of New Orleans owns the monuments and the land upon which they are located and that the City is well within its power and authority to relocate the monuments.
Defenders of the monuments disagreed, saying that the City no longer owns the land since it donated the land to private organizations and that the taxpayers of New Orleans paid for the creation and erection of the statues. This side also argued that the groups who took it upon themselves to maintain the monuments and the land on which they are located have a legitimate stake in the fate of the monuments.
After listening to both sides, the court said it would weigh the arguments but did not indicate when it would issue a ruling.
“We remain steadfast in our commitment to taking down the four monuments voted on by the City Council,” the City of New Orleans said in a statement on September 28.
“At this time, we will respect and abide by the court’s order to not remove them while the matter is pending and we appreciate the opportunity to present our case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals today.
“The City maintains that it is well within its rights to manage its own property. And when challenged, this authority has been upheld in both federal and state court. We understand the public’s frustration with the timing of this process and ask for continued patience as we move forward.”
The Monumental Task Force, one of the four groups opposing the relocation of the monuments, said Wednesday that it was “pleased to present our case today before the United State Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. We appreciate the Fifth Circuit’s prior order maintaining the monuments in place, and we look forward to a ruling that will continue to protect the monuments until a final ruling by the trial court.”
Several hundred people representing both sides of the issue gathered at the Federal Courthouse Wednesday to weigh in on the case. Four days earlier, an estimated 500 demonstrators marched from Congo Square to Jackson Square to take down the Andrew Jackson statue. Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, was a slave owner and advocated the disenfranchisement, relocation and extermination of Native Americans.
While the Jackson monument was not included among the statues targeted by the City of New Orleans for relocation, Take Em Down NOLA and other groups have said there are dozens of other statues that are racially offensive and should be added to the list.
At the September 24 protest at Jackson Square, demonstrators encountered former KKK grand wizard David Duke and others opposed to relocating the monuments and NOPD officers who placed a barricade around the monument.
“We just need to put ropes on him and pull him off his pedestal,” Take Em Down NOLA organizer Malcolm Suber said before the September 24 protest. After he was cussed out by several whites and an older white woman grabbed a bullhorn out of his hands, David Duke left Jackson Square before most of the demonstrators arrived.
“He didn’t just leave – we ran him out of there,” a WBOK listener told the radio station on September 26. After a series of heated exchanges and several attempts to pull down the barricade or climb over it, seven people were arrested by police. Six of those arrested face charges for disturbing the peace and the seventh person was arrested for “crossing or traversing a police cordon.”
Two attempts to challenge the December 2015 City Council vote failed in committee in the State Legislature this past spring and two legal challenges mounted by four groups were rejected in civil and federal court. Also, a Baton Rouge-based contractor selected to remove the monuments backed out of the contract after the company owner and his wife received death threats at their home.
After several prospective bidders for the contract received harassing phone calls from supporters of the group called Save Our Circle, the City of New Orleans made changes to its website to conceal the names of prospective bidders. The City later halted the bidding process altogether after several court delays.
This article originally published in the October 3, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
